


Rainy Days and Mondays

by miasnape



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Airplanes, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e17 Sunday, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hotel Sex, M/M, Scotland, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:58:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miasnape/pseuds/miasnape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It could have happened like this." - Rodney post-Sunday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainy Days and Mondays

It could have happened like this:

It's like the last sound waves from the explosion have left his ears and he's been plunged into silence and his head is suddenly, scarily hollow. He finds Katie in her lab. She's still watching her ferns, but her eyes are red-rimmed and he sticks in the doorway like the soles of his shoes are made of hot tar. When Katie looks up, her whole face goes soft. _I must look pathetic_ , he thinks, but when she gets up and wraps her arms around his shoulders, smelling of chlorophyll and soil and living, growing things, he doesn't care. Her hair is soft and shines like copper under the lights and when he buries his face in it, it's like pulling the blankets over his head and abandoning the too-bright sunlight for a few more minutes of oblivious sleep.

"If you're busy I can--" he starts, and she pulls him closer, her whole body soft and welcoming against his.

"Don't be silly, Rodney. I'm glad you're here," she tells him, and he breathes her in because he's glad he's here too.

~~~  
It didn't happen like that.  
~~~

It could have happened like this:

He cleans out Carson's room, and tries not to choke on all of the memories. He lets the St. Andrew's cross burn into his retinas and helps bear the coffin through the wormhole like a blessing. He pretends to sleep on the flight over the Atlantic Ocean, his eyes closed against the tiny airplane window and the people who talk in murmurs and the irony in nomenclature.

He watches as stoic Scottish men and women cry proud tears over their loss; listens when they talk about wee Carson, the babbie of the family and the apple of his mother's eye. He drinks ten cups of tea in two days and is told three times that it always rains at a Glasgow funeral. His hair gets wet and he sits at the back of the church, cold, and uncomfortable with the conventions of religion.

He goes back to his hotel room alone, and stays awake all night. He sleeps on the flight back, twisted sideways on the seat, and when he arrives at Cheyenne Mountain he's ready to go back home.

~~~  
It did happen like that. Other things happened as well.  
~~~

The first thing he sees, after, is a reflection of his own ugly realisation in Sheppard's face. The bone-to-bone shock of knowing fully how another person feels at the exact moment they feel it is almost as painful to Rodney as the feeling itself. He doesn't see Sheppard again until the first funeral, and when John's expression makes it past the haze of white crosses on blue swimming across his vision it's like his oesophagus has been stretched and his heart's been seared, and it _hurts_ , even more than before, and so he looks away.

Somewhere in the cool concrete maze of the SGC Sam Carter squeezes his arm and he doesn't notice until he's long past her. His head hurts, and his eyes are hot and aching and he wants something alcoholic to take away the scratch in his throat. Instead he gets a cup of takeaway coffee hot enough to burn his tongue and strong enough to make his fingers stop shaking.

The first day in Glasgow is hellish. He tells his best friend's mother that her son died and she comforts him, taking his hand in a strong grip and reassuring him that Carson knew the dangers of his life and his job, and that he would have taken that path regardless. Carson's brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and god knows who else descend on the Beckett household, bringing food and telling stories about Carson that under other circumstances would be perfect blackmail material. Rodney does his best to fade into the background when he can, but it's still almost two am when he flings himself prostrate on his hotel bed and sleeps fitfully and almost fully dressed for five hours.

It rains the next day, as forecast by various Becketts. "It's mizzling," an uncle says, and Rodney walks into the church at the back of the crowd, his suit absorbing the fine mist of water until he feels waterlogged inside and out. Sheppard keeps his pace, and they sit at the back of the church, beside a draughty stained glass window, shivering as the minister talks. At some point, Sheppard's hand settles on his shoulder, and at some point it lifts again, and for all of the in between time Rodney feels it.

There's more food and a lot of drink and Rodney's mother and father and all four of his grandparents have died in his lifetime, but this is the first time he's been to a real Scottish wake. There are no sombre people drifting aimlessly about a quiet room; it's all noise and bluster and tears and jokes and remembering Carson. It's cathartic, and also stifling, because most of what Carson was to him he can't share in more than general terms.

The knock on his hotel room door comes ten minutes after he undressed and started staring blankly at the dark well of the ceiling. Another minute later and he's stripped of his boxers and t-shirt and John is kicking his own underwear across the carpet. When John whispers Rodney's name it's the first thing either of them has said directly to the other since it happened and Rodney's breath shudders against his ribs when he pulls John down, skin-to-skin, face-to-face on top of him, between his spread thighs.

"John," Rodney says, and it's a plea and an assurance.

The first kiss is a test, closed mouthed and gentle, John pressing Rodney's head back into his cupped hand with the barely-there pressure, watching as his eyes slip shut and moving into the motion when Rodney's fingers trail over his spine and settle around the sharp jut of his hipbone.

When their lips part they stay close, breathing unsteadily, Rodney's hand stuttering at John's hip, and then tightening. John's fingers shift, carding through Rodney's short hair. "Yeah?" he asks, and feels Rodney's yes as a nod and tastes the word when it spills onto his tongue, and the second kiss is teeth and tongue and passion and a little bit of despair.

John brings his free hand up to cup Rodney's jaw, index finger tracing circles around the point, thumb dragging across the barest hint of stubble. Rodney's free hand skims the fine, dark hairs on John's outer thigh before sliding across and teasing along the softer skin on the inside, trailing up higher and higher until he's cupping John's ass and pulling him down into his own body, slow and easy like melting ice cream.

There's a thrill in feeling Sheppard this way; in touching his skin and feeling the heat of his breath against his lips and throat and knowing that _we shouldn't be doing this_ , but completely overwhelming that is the comfort of how right it _feels_ to be doing this with John, and the reassurance when he opens his eyes and looks that he still sees his friend and his team mate and the man who drives him crazy on a regular basis. After nuclear bombs and Wraith and Iratus bugs and almost three years, Rodney's acceptance of John's infuriating way of living and almost-dieing is worn in like his mission gear.

"Carson was supposed to be safe."

John moves his head to look at him, leaving a patch of mouth-wet skin on Rodney's throat.

"He was supposed to stay in Atlantis, and to let me complain about us always having to go out and deal with the dangerous stuff, and to patch us up when we get hurt, and he was supposed to be safe."

John's left hand rests on Rodney's shoulder, fingers following the curve, and Rodney closes his eyes and focuses on that touch rather than John's face.

"I know," John says, and Rodney takes John's mouth again, pulls him even closer. Rodney has never been able to emotionally empathise on an intimate level with anyone, and this bizarre, raw connection between John and him incrementally makes more sense with every second of physical contact passing and every molecule of distance destroyed.

They roll to the side together, still kissing, hard muscle and strong limbs pressing firmly and tangling as they move. It's nothing like being with a woman: no soft, pliable flesh and yielding cushion of breasts. This is solid and real and, dismissing all practicalities as irrelevant, Rodney doesn't ever want it to stop happening. Even the minor interruption when John crouches beside the bed and digs in the pocket of his discarded pants for condoms and lubricant leaves him cold and vaguely twitchy.

When they're knotted together again on the wrinkling sheets, John's warm hands soothing nervous tremors from his arms and their erections pressed burning hot between them, Rodney forces as much of the tension in his shoulders as he can to dissipate and gives his body up to John's confident hands.

Rodney knows John has done this before – more than once – just like John knows that before now Rodney's bisexuality was entirely theoretical, and that he was 23 before he had sex. They're both reasonably certain that Teyla had someone back on Athos who was culled, or killed, and that a part of her will always grieve him, and as time passes they're all finding out more about Ronon's past. Rodney's not sure when 'team' started to have its own meaning to him; a new category of relationship that only three people fit into. Carson was his best friend, Radek is the most impressive colleague he's worked with in his entire career, one day he wants a family, and John, Teyla and Ronon will always know parts of him that no one else has or will.

When John's slickly covered fingers press into him, and his eyes watch Rodney diligently, and his left palm rubs circles into the dip between Rodney's shoulder blades, the realisation that John now has a nameless definition and role of his own slams into Rodney. His arms independently tighten around John's torso, and he hides his stinging eyes by pressing his forehead against John's collarbone.

"Am I hurting you?" John asks quietly, and when Rodney shakes his head the tears spill out, raining drops of saltwater over their skin.

"No. Don't stop." His voice wobbles, and when John moves his free hand up to cradle his neck, presses his lips into the hair on the crown of Rodney's head, Rodney doesn't care that this is the most vulnerable he's ever been with someone who isn't an hallucination. John's fingers keep filling him, sparking bursts of pleasure when they twist, and when Rodney's lips trail across his chest, John's whole body shudders around him and in the circle of his arms.

John rolls Rodney onto his back, stroking the sensitive skin on his sides firmly enough not to tickle, back and forth, his voice low when he says, "I need to see you. Is this okay? On your back?" When Rodney nods, John's thumb swipes the wet tracks from his temples, one after the other, slowly, and doesn't say a word when one blink undoes his work; instead he settles Rodney's hips on a pillow and rolls a condom onto his cock, breath a sharp hiss through his teeth when he smoothes the cool lubricant over it.

It's no more or less odd than the rest of this brand-new experience when John starts to fuck him, and it only hurts once, a brief, sharp half-second spasm that flashes white behind his eyes and leaves before he finishes inhaling. By the time he's settled in Rodney as deep as he can go, John's trembling slightly. Rodney pulls him closer by the shoulders and holds on when John starts to thrust, steady and strong and achingly good.

John's trembling gets more pronounced when Rodney's hips start moving in counterpoint to his rhythm, driving up the pace. Rodney watches him tuck his chin down and squeeze his eyes closed tight, and strains his neck to press a kiss on John's crumpled forehead. When John opens his eyes and lifts his head again to look at Rodney they're both panting, sweat forming under Rodney's hands on John's back, and in the creases of Rodney's bent knees, and glistening slick between them, mixed with the fluid leaking from Rodney's twitching cock.

Rodney's hips miss a half-beat when John leans low and sucks, then licks, the hollow of his throat. When he shifts, the moan that formed in his throat escapes, vibrating against John's lips. "Yes, yes, right--right there, that's--it's--oh!"

Rodney's fingernails dig into John's back when he comes, thrusting his cock in minute movements against John's stomach, mouth open but soundless. John makes a small vowel sound and curses, his, "Fuck, Rodney," punctuating three hard, deep thrusts before his body locks in an arch and he follows Rodney into orgasm.

John slides out of Rodney quickly and smoothly, fumbling a knot into the condom with nerveless hands before letting it fall off the edge of the bed and himself slump onto Rodney's body. Both of their chests still rising and falling sharply, Rodney's under John's head and John's cushioned by Rodney's stomach, Rodney lets his fingers slip through John's sweaty hair and gently pets him like he would a cat.

It takes a while for Rodney to realise what the small movements of John's head are, and when he carefully tugs John's hair until he can see his face he already knows what he's going to see. The skin at his temples is still tight with his own tears and sweat and he just settles John's head back onto his chest and keeps threading his fingers through his silky hair.

They lie there until they're both calm and too cold. Rodney showers quickly, and when he comes back to the bed the sheets are military smooth. John sets his neatly folded clothes in a pile on a chair before disappearing into the tiny bathroom himself, and Rodney doesn't spend more than a few minutes alone in the bed before John slides under the covers beside him, smelling like steam. They turn out all of the lights and press their bodies together in a warm cocoon and talk into the darkness, telling all of the stories about Carson that they couldn't tell at the wake.

The room gets lighter as dawn approaches, and by the time John leaves Rodney's room to change and pack, his socked feet quiet on the carpet, it's bright outside and there are only a few hours until their flight is scheduled to leave.

Rodney sits in a window seat, with the plastic window cover pulled down, his seat reclined and a thin airline blanket tossed haphazardly over him. He turns until his knee is pressed against the side of John's leg and within fifteen minutes he's asleep. He wakes up twenty minutes before they land, still slightly drowsy, face pink with sleep-warmth and his hair sticking up above his ear. John is sleeping sitting upright, his arm draped over the separating armrest, the back of his hand grazing Rodney's thigh, fingers twitching, and Rodney waits until the seatbelt light comes on before he moves to shake him awake.

John's hand settles on his shoulder when their shoes hit the tarmac, and stays there until they're well into the terminal and halfway to where the car from the SCG is waiting to take them back to the mountain. Sitting in the backseat, Rodney turns and meets John's gaze and knows exactly what John is feeling, and a warmth settles in his gut. They both sink down into the leather and let the driver bring them a few miles closer to home.

~~~  
It happens like this:

Rodney tells Katie that he enjoys spending time with her and that he would be lucky to end up with someone as intelligent and beautiful and sweet as her. He tells her that what happened with Carson made him look at some things in his life differently. He tells her that whoever she ends up with is going to be a very lucky man.

She takes it well. She doesn't cry, or hit him, or yell at him, or ask the real reason why, even though he can tell she knows he's not telling her the whole story.

The truth is that he doesn't know exactly what he has with John, or how long either or them have left to explore it. He does know that when he needed comfort, and someone to be close to, he went to John; that he didn't even think about Katie until she saw him in the mess hall when he got back and asked how he was doing.

When he leaves Katie's quarters, his feet take him straight to John's.

~~~  
It happened like this:

Rodney's best friend died a stupid, heroic, pointless death.

Rodney lived.

THE END


End file.
